Lena Dunham may play the role of Hannah on Girls,but on the day of her Entertainment Weekly cover shoot, she was feeling a little Shoshanna.

“Lena [chose] the Shoshanna shade because she liked the contrast of the violet to the edgy makeup,” says manicurist Deborah Lippmann, who used the pale purple color – inspired by Zosia Mamet’s character – from her Girls polish line to paint Dunham’s nails.

Turns out, Dunham actually had a hand in creating the collection.

“When they were having the premiere for the first show of the first season, I donated a polish called ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’ to the gift bag. A few days later, I got an email from Lena with a picture of one of her hand with the color on her nails [with the message] ’Don’t you think it would be kind of cool if Hannah had her own really hip green?’” explains Lippmann, who has created nail polish inspired by Snow White and the Huntsman and True Blood, and recently released a lipstick shade named after Carly Rae Jepsen’s 2012 summer anthem, “Call Me Maybe.” “That’s how it all started.”

The shades in the 4-polish set are inspired by the distinct personalities of the show’s central characters.

“[Lena] gave me some buzz words for the way she thought about each of the girls,” Lippmann says of Dunham’s creative contribution. “Then she stepped away and let me do my thing.”

Read more about Lena Dunham and the women who run TV in this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly, on newsstands now.